Halong Bay

 Hi all

Today we managed to escape the hustle and bustle of Hanoi for a two day trip to Halong Bay. The journey takes about 3 hours from the capital, but is worth the effort of booking as to do it independently requires a stay in Halong City, where most hotels are for rent by the hour and nearly all have in-house 'massage' !

We reached the dock along with a few hundred other 'farang' and were transported to our selected boat a very well equipped converted Junk 'hotel' for the rest of our trip. The karst limestone islands are all partially submerged mountains and number 3000+  with only approximately 900 having been named. No sooner were we settled in our cabin, then we got the knock for lunch, which really set the tone for the rest of the trip! Lunch was a sumptuous seafood feast, which we just had time to finish before we arrived at our first destination, a series of enormous caves set within one of the closest islands. No sooner had we been 'herded' around with the masses, and taken the launch back to the junk then we were informed that it was now time to swim....... The water was incredibly warm, & very salty but had a fierce undercurrent which meant you were swimming pretty hard to stay still. I'm glad that the weaker swimmers admitted this prior to jumping in with life jackets on because I'm not sure how we would have managed a rescue. However it was lovely, and Dean and another guy even braved the overhangs of the boat to jump off the top deck which was a good 30 feet. All it leaves me to say was sun downers were great, dinner was sumptuous and the beers never tasted so good..........

Thanks for looking

Sara